Skald: Against the Black Priory
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| Quick Info | |
|---|---|
| Mods available? | No |
| Year released | 2024 |
| Available from | Steam
 GoG
|
| Category | Rpg |
| Time to Beat | 16.5 Hours |
| Played? | Ongoing |
Game length provided by HowLongToBeat  |
|
Skald: Against the Black Priory was released in 2024 from developer High North Studios. The game is a retro-styled rpg heavily influenced by the Ultima games but with a more modern approach. With an excellent Lovecraftian story and great pixel art throughout the game, a playthrough will bring back nostalgia for the early era of rpgs.
The game features strong writing with a cool Lovecraftian atmosphere. Coupled with great pixel art graphics, it's an rpg with a definate style and sense of atmosphere to it. While the graphics can be great to look at, they can provide some challenges to readability and strain the eyes over long play sessions (especially on larger screens).
Why should this game be played?
This game has atmosphere and an approach that is reminesent of old-school rpgs. The pixelated graphics, overworld travel and gameplay systems all come together in a nice package to provide players with a challenging adventure, with plenty of options to assemble and grow a party of adventurers. A party of up to 6 characters can be assembled over the course of the game, with each party member having a skill tree to assign points against after each level up, differing skills and spells to utilize and a full set of equipment to upgrade over time.
Combat in the game is turn based and utilizes a action point system, with characters receiving movement and action points to spend each round. Spells, skills and stealth can also all come into play during combat to provide additional depth during battles. The battles themselves can get quite hectic and somewhat hard to read at times due to the pixelate graphics, and way that many of the systems are displayed on the screen. However, if this can be looked past - there is a satisfying combat system there. There are no 'random' encounters while traveling in the overworld and when exploring an area, most enemies can be seen prior to battle. The stealth system in the game is pretty good as well, so characters are able to sneak past some of the random encounters that they don't want to engage in.
The game has a cool story, with Lovecraftian and horror elements mixed in throughout. Much of the story is told through dialog panes or exposition while exploring the world. When interacting with NPCs there is a good amount of dialog trees available, with some branching paths and skillchecks thrown in for good measure.
Overall, this game is a great adventure with a good story, established rpg rules and systems and a cool world to explore.
Where to get the game
The game is available on both Steam and GoG for around $15 USD and goes on sale every 4-5 weeks for up to 40% off.
Available Mods
The developer of Skald is activly beta testing a comprehensive set of mod tools - the Skald Data Editor (SKaDE), which is now in open beta. This toolset should provide modders with the ability to not only change things within Skald itself, but to craft all new adventures utilizing the underlying systems within the game.
Additional Resources
| Resource | Link | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Game Info | SkaldRPG Subreddit |
The subreddit for Skald, good place to do some initial research before buying. |
| Skald RPG Devlog |
Development blog from the dev of Skald. Some good reads and insites into the design of the game. |